To spread the word, can you do me a favor? On my website, there is a PDF file of the poster shown at left. If you can, print it out and post it at your local grocery store, church, community center, or where ever you think knitters, quilters, and stitchers may see it. The more people who come, the more fun it will be for all of us. There will be door prizes and I’ll be doing a booksigning. I’ll have knitted samples from the book too. I can’t wait to meet all of you!

Download the poster by clicking here.

If you can’t come to this event, I’ll also be at Knit and Crochet Out at the Mall of America on February 16 and 17th. Click here for information about this event.

Note to regular blog readers: This post is dated so that it will appear at the top of my blog until the day of the event. For new posts, see below.

When I work on a book, I put a lot into it and come up with all kinds of ideas. Books have a certain amount of pages and everything must fit according to a formula – aka “book layout and design.” This part really drives me crazy because my content, that I worked on, wrote about and conceptualized in my head often gets dropped. But those are the breaks. I often save the ideas and can try to add it to the next book project if it fits. And then there is my blog which is the perfect vehicle for showing ideas that get cut.

From reading this blog, you know that lots of my ideas come from nature and observing. So it was with the colorways of both of the Atlantic and Pacific socks. (This pattern is on page 84 of Kristin Knits.) I wrote a lovely little passage about this inspiration and it got cut to two short sentences. I’ll let you in on some of it here.

Over the years, I have lived on both coasts of the USA. I went to school at Oregon State University on an exchange program in 1978-79. I was one of a large number of exchange students from all over the USA and parts of the world. Most of us weren’t there only for school. Mostly we wanted to explore the incredibly beautiful state of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. OSU was where I met The Farmer – he was on exchange from UMass and I from University of Delaware. We all would venture to the Oregon Coast (Corvallis was only about 1 1/2 hours from the coast) and spend time on the beach and eating clam chowder. I am pretty sure beer and coffee was also involved. I can still remember the amazing sunsets like they were yesterday – purple, fuschia, orange, gray blues. They are marked on my mind and I hope they never leave. I don’t have a photo of these days but you can see what I am talking about here on this “beach camping website.” Those sunsets inspired the socks on the polka dot legs.

About ten years later, my friend Sally invited The Farmer and I to her home on Swan’s Island – a small island off of Bass Harbor “down east” in Maine. I had never been to an island in Maine before. We both fell in love with the everything on the island – the people, the colors, the freshly caught lobster, the smells. We’ve been going back ever since. Last summer I wrote about our trip here and here.

So that’s where I got the color ideas for these socks. I am really happy with the way they turned out. I had intended them to be shown on a man and a woman but we didn’t have an available male at the shoot. But there was a little person and her mom (not me and Julia in case you are wondering). Luckily I had brought a bunch of Julia’s tights with me and they were the perfect accessory. We plopped the mom and her child on a table in this lovely gray room and here’s how they look. I do so love the photo and how the legs are intertwined. Kevin Kennefick did a great job.

There will be some big news next week about something a new friend and I have been working on. Stop back at the beginning of the week!

That said, I have also tried to make him wear handknit hats. I knit him a rather nice multi-colored one last year and he wore it a bit and then left it somewhere so it rotted into the ground in a pile of manure. I found it not long ago and gave up. As for the gloves, if they aren’t leather and insulated, they don’t last. Manure and sileage are nasty things. So I give up there also. It’s hard to dress The Farmer in handknits – unless it’s for dress-up. He does have one aran sweater that he wears for special occassions.

Truth be told, when he needs a hat on the tractor, he wears the most disgusting acrylic bright orange hat so the hunters don’t shoot him. I have commented to him in the past about the ugliness of the thing but I gave up there too. Evidently the fluorescent orange hat is nice and loose and comfortable. Thank goodness most people around here don’t know what The Farmer’s Wife does!

There’s been some fun stuff I’ve been alerted to by internet friends. Here’s an amazing crop circle made of sheep! Thanks Diane. My guess is that there was food involved. Here’s a photo of my Farmer with a grain bucket nearly being swept off his feet by the sheep. He is experimenting with feeding dried corn to the mama ewes (instead of the grain pellets he sometimes feeds). The cost of grain has skyrocketed and this is a little more economical. For a few days, they wouldn’t eat it but now, it’s a mad rush to put down the corn and move before they knock him over.

This rooster is too cute! I suggested to Storey, my publisher, that perhaps they should introduce a line of knitted farm animal patterns. After all, they are the leading publisher of books for country living, farmers and farmer wannabees. Check it out!

But lo and behold, Saturday she had a lamb! Thankfully the lamb is a girl (which means she will live a long life here on the farm).

Julia is beside herself with delight. She has named Cora’s lamb Mora. (She’s got a long list of names for future Cora-babies whenever they are born.) We kept Cora and Mora in a little enclosure for a day so we could try to tame Mora. They escaped – no surprise. Mora is the cutest little thing. Spunky with a zest for life. She’s big for a yearling ewe’s lamb. I doubt she’ll have quite the personality of her mom since Cora is nursing her so beautifully. This does give us a special reason to visit the barn which is fun for all of us.

Julia says this makes her a grandmother and me a great-grandmother. Considering I won’t get that chance in my life, I think I will take a lamb great-granddaughter anyday.

A while back, I asked The Farmer what’s the most important job he plays as a shepherd during lambing season. I expected him to say something like pulling out a live lamb during a difficult birth. But no, not my calm, mild mannered, quiet Farmer. He told me his most important job is observing.

He spends all day and parts of the evening with the sheep. Lots of the time he is moving feed around – it takes a long time to feed 150 ewes and over 100 lambs. Once he is done with morning chores, he gets a little break for a quick lunch. Then it’s back to the greenhouse barn to feed some more.

Often, when I arrive for a quick peek at what’s going on, he’ll be standing there, just looking. I think to myself, oh, he’s doing the big part of his job – observing! He miraculously knows which ewe lambed the night before. He can tell you which lamb belongs to which sheep and if it is a single or a twin. He can tell if a ewe is in trouble and needs help with a delivery. It boggles my mind that he can tell them all apart. I can tell what breed one of the sheep is or perhaps about how old it is. I can guess how old a lamb is within reason. I can tell you if a ewe is having trouble lambing but the other stuff, not a prayer.

I guess it’s a lot like a knitter going into a large yarn store. I can tell one fiber from another. I can pick out just the perfect ocean teal blue from one that is just not right. I can feel the difference between a superwash wool and a beautifully soft merino wool. I can guess which yarn might have mohair or alpaca in it.

I guess it’s the same for all of us. We explore our passions and learn as much as we can. Then we observe and make decisions. But tell me, could you tell which sheep is the mother of which lamb?

When I was thinking of what kind of visual image I could use for this post, I did some browsing through my massive iPhoto library on my computer and I found this little patchwork quilt-ish image. These are swatches that were knit for the color section of Kristin Knits and they illustrate how combining different colors gives different effects. They also happen to be colored in what I consider very ethnic colorways – although that wasn’t the point of the swatches at all. They were knit to illustrate how different colors play against each other. When they are grouped together, they give a very bright and happy feeling – the same feeling I get when I look at an ethnic textile from far away lands. Someday, I should seam them and make a patchwork pillow. I’ll just add that to that long and growing list………

Going out to booksignings is good for me. I don’t do it very often because I live so far from everything. When I do, it helps me meet who I am working for. Working for perhaps is an odd way to put it but it’s pretty true. I am working for whoever will buy one of my books or designs and invest their precious time and money in yarn to knit one of my designs. I know most knitters don’t have lots of spare time and they have way more ideas than the hours will spare. If a knitter makes a project I am thrilled. If they make it out of my Julia Yarn, I am even more thrilled.

My new book Kristin Knits has been out now for about two months. I’ve heard from lots of people knitting things from it and I’ve seen projects in progress posted on blogs. It makes me happy that knitters are actually making the things I thought about so carefully and that they are having success. I just heard from Storey, my publisher, that the book went back to press which is really great news.

I’d love to have a place for people to post projects – finished and in progress. I welcome your feedback on this one. Should I start a blog on blogspot or a flickr pool of KristinKnits projects. I don’t have a lot of extra time in my day though for lots of administrative type stuff and you all know about my slow dial-up situation. I’m afraid the blogspot thing would be just too much for me and besides, does anyone host knitalongs anymore? Would a flickr pool be good or do knitters not go there? I think there is something started on Ravelry about my book but I haven’t joined yet. I know I should but I just don’t have enough time in my day to do it all. It’s all I can do to keep this blog going. What do you think I should do? I welcome your comments here or by email.

The other night my good friend Linda who lives close to Boston called me practically jumping through the phone. “You’re on WGBH now!” Wow – how exciting to hear that the show is finally airing and in a big market like Boston. It was on their “Creates” channel where they also show cooking, gardening, woodworking and more. How perfect! I was anxious, of course. She said I did a good job and didn’t sound dumb. Thank goodness.

From what I hear, Knit and Crochet Today is going to be on lots of major PBS t.v. stations this winter. So check your local listings and tune in! I have heard they will be taping another season’s worth of shows which is great news, isn’t it?

And if Knit and Crochet Today isn’t playing on your local PBS station, don’t be shy. Ask them to feature it. Here’s a handy form to use. We knitters and crocheters have got to be vocal about our craft, otherwise media outlets don’t know how many of us there are that are interested!

If you are a retailer, approach your local PBS station about sponsoring Knit and Crochet Today. It is very reasonable and certainly will give your store a higher profile by being connected to PBS.

Here are some crocheted flowers to brighten up your winter day. You can read more about them here. Hard to believe that summer will ever be back again. Our temperatures have been below zero for a few days. The seed catalogs are arriving and it’s about time to start browsing and ordering. It is never too cold to think about sunflowers and zinnias.


What are you knitting or crocheting today?

The Farmer had to get up crazy early because he was going to a “Grazing Conference” way up in Vermont. First, barn chores and then a long drive to Vermont Technical College in Randolph Center. It is organized by University of Vermont’s Center for Sustainable Agriculture and the Vermont Grass Farmers’ Association.

I’m sure most of you are wondering what the heck they talk about at a grazing conference. It’s quite similar to going to a Stitches or TKGA Conference for knitters but it is for farmers and not nearly as expensive to attend. Farmers from throughout the area drive in and take classes on subjects that you probably haven’t thought about. The Keynote Speaker was Greg Judy who flew in from Missouri and spoke on “The Wonderful Grass Machine: Using Livestock to Restore Fallow Land.” This guy travels the continent speaking about his 2,000 head of cattle and how they harvest his and his neighbor’s grass! I think listening to him may be similar to a knitter hearing Kaffe Fassett speak.

The Farmer was very excited about all that he learned at the different classes. He has attended this conference for years and brings back interesting tid-bits of knowledge. I quizzed him the other day so I might have something profound to report to you all. He’s not much for flowery descriptions (that is my department). His comment was that it was nice to meet like-minded individuals who were trying in their own small way to preseve the bucolic (not his word, mine) farmlands of New England.

As you can imagine, the conference has to be in the winter when fields are not growing and being harvested. He said it is lots of fun to hear what other farmers are doing in their operations which include beef, dairy cattle, sheep, goats, chickens, and turkeys. He feels part of a small but hopefully growing movement, alternative as it is, to help do his part to keep the landscape of New England open, beautiful, and productive.

Our sheep are primarily grass fed. This means they eat grass in the spring, summer, and fall and hay (or preserved grass) in the winter. (Our larger lambs are just starting to pick at the hay.) Rotational grazing is an efficient way to harvest grass and turn it into a by-product (lamb and wool). But you have to stay right on top of the sheep and the grass so that they don’t over-graze a field. Overgrazing puts stress on the root systems of the plants and they can’t recover. Here are some of the other good side effects of rotational grazing:
•Permanent pastures provide habitat for grassland birds.
•Pastured animals are much healthier than any kept in typical feedlot situations, hence healthier to eat.
•Naturally applied manure reduces the need for chemical fertilizers.
•Less fuel needed to harvest the food and thereby reduces the carbon footprint.
•Reduces (or eliminates) the need for feeding of grain grown other places far away.
•Small farms whose fields are often abandoned can remain in agricultural production if grazing animals are used to keep the pastures from reverting to woodlands.
•And probably a knitter’s favorite reason for rotational grazing – a field full of sheep is just so darn beautiful.

I bet not much of this information was on your mind this morning. If you want to learn more about agriculture and food in the United States, I highly recomment Michael Pollan‘s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. It’s a fascinating look at large and small agriculture and the source of your food.

So what, you ask, does this have anything to do with steeks? If you haven’t guessed by now, I went on to have a long sewing career making most of my clothes through my teen years and beyond. When I eventually learned to knit proficiently, I was in college majoring in Textiles and Clothing. Knitting was something I picked up for fun. I could do it on the train or the bus going back and forth to college.

Eventually my interest in knitting began to take over my sewing hobby. I started spinning wool. And then I had all this yarn which I couldn’t find a pattern for. A professor of mine wisely recommended some books including Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Without Tears. I started designing my own patterns for my own handspun yarns following the sage advice of the wonderful EZ. I noticed the word steek but I was into “knit in the round” sweaters. A year or so later, I picked up a book called Knitting in the Nordic Tradition and saw the steek technique again. I decided to give it a go and haven’t turned back since. I knit most of my sweaters in the round and cut them and sew the sleeves in. I’m not afraid and you should not be either.

When I was working on Kristin Knits and I got to the section on sweaters, I thought long and hard about “knitting in the round” vs. “knitting back and forth.” I have written patterns both ways. When I worked for TYC, I always wrote my patterns for back and forth knitting. We didn’t feel our shopowner customers were interested in “steeking.” We were afraid we would turn them off to certain knit in the round and steeked patterns and then sit with a warehouse full of them. We realized the LYS-owners didn’t have a lot of extra time in their day and wouldn’t want to be bothered with helping their customers learn about and make and finish steeks.

But my book was my own thing. I could do whatever I wanted, within reason. I asked a lot of knitting friends what they thought. I asked some shopowners. I was torn. In the end, with the decision making help of my wonderful editor Gwen, I decided to present two of the five sweaters included in the book to be worked in the round with steeks. The photo shown here is a steeked sweater from Kristin Knits. (The lovely alternative photo was not used in the book and it is by Kevin Kennefick.) This sweater has steeks at both the neckline and the armholes.

I’ve taught a lot of knitters how to sew and cut a steek. I think the first thing to remember is that you must have no fear. If you are very timid, practice on an old swatch following the directions below. I promise you it isn’t hard – it is mostly your fear of the unknown that is holding you back!

Enough of the chit-chat. Let’s move on to how you do it.

First of all, what is a steek? Briefly, a steek is an extra set of stitches knit into a garment which will become a seam later on. A steek makes it possible to knit sweaters in the round (or anything for that matter) that later needs to be seamed or have a zipper or edging added to it. I knit my steeks in alternate colors (knit 1 dark, knit 1 light) so that the yarns are caught into the fabric and that it will be sturdy. On the next round, I swap the colors and a little check fabric will develop. (I also knit steeks on solid color sweaters so that I am always working on the right side but I’m not going to talk about that here.)

The biggest advantage of including a steek in your knitting is that you will always be knitting in the round. If you have dyslexic tendencies like I do, it is much easier to always see the right side of the knitting and follow a chart always from right to left. I can’t be bothered with working colorwork back and forth and I even knit most of my swatches in the round on double pointed needles.

Here is a steek at the armhole of the sweater. Note that the steek begins after the fabric has been knit in a regular pattern until the armhole needs to start.

Here is a steek done at a neckline. You will notice a little pouch created by the bound-off stitches at the base of the neck. The gentle side neck shaping occurs at either side of the steek.

I use my trusty old Bernina sewing machine to stitch my steeks before cutting them. In these photos, I have used white thread. Set the machine to a straight stitch and sew between the stitches on the outside of the steek stitches. I call this “stitching in the ditch” and the machine stitching will actually disappear. Do this on either side of the steek – there will be 1 row of straight sewing machine stitches on either side of the steek.

Next, set your machine to a medium zig-zag stitch. My steek has 6 stitches in it. I am going to sew down the center of the two centermost stitches in the steek, making 2 rows of zig-zag. Locate stitch number 3 and sew a row of machine stitches over the the knit stitches. Next, locate stitch number 4 and sew a row of machine stitches over the knit stitches. The photo below shows the second row of zig-zag being stitched.

It is important to keep the knit fabric flat and neat while stitching. Do not pull on it as you sew or it will distort and ripple. Make sure you block and steam your knitting before doing the sewing machine work.

Now, take a deep breath and using a sharp pair of scissors, cut through the center of the two zig-zag rows of stitching. Be careful not to snip the sewing machine stitches (although nothing much will probably happen if you do). Be careful when you come to the end of the armhole steek so you don’t inadvertedly clip the main part of your sweater. The following photo shows an armhole steek being cut.

That’s all there is to it. Give it a try and see what you think. I have never had a steek fall apart and almost every sweater I have made has used steeks.

This series of photos was taken as a guide for the illustrations I did on Cutting a Steek in my new book Kristin Knits. I give full instruction in that book but as someone said, a picture is worth a thousand words.

If all else fails and you are still too timid to try, I suggest printing out this blog post and taking it to a local tailor or alterations expert along with your almost finished sweater. They will be able to do this for you quickly and easily and then you can get on with sewing the sleeves in and attaching the neckband and cardigan band.